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Dear colleagues, friends and newbies,
The Twin Book project on astronomical spectroscopy is from now on available !
It is composed of two books: a “Spectral Atlas” and an accompanying handbook “Spectroscopy for Amateur Astronomers“.
It is the fruitfull result of an intensive and pleasant cooperation between Richard Walker and me.
When the “Dados Spectrograph” came on the market we both ordered one and started at that time (anno 2007) with the idea of a collection of high quality low resolution spectra. Richard’s excellent and very interesting Spectral Atlas has been known for years as a downloadable online document. As the interest in astronomical spectroscopy was growing and new spectrographs were introduced on the market we prepared this Twin book project to the benefit of every amateur astronomer entering the world of spectroscopy.
In behalf of Richard and me we wish every reader of our books a pleasant and interesting study trip through the astronomical spectral world.
The books can be ordered via following links:
In the attachment you can download a discount flyer for each of the books we offer to all interested buyers valid until May 7th 2018.
Many thanks in advance and enjoy the wonderfull and challenging world of spectroscopy.
Kind regards,
Marc.
Attachments:
Great ! Many thanks for your interest Andy.
I’m very pleased to see on the “Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs” forum that a “specialist” like Robin Leadbeater already is enthusiastic about the books.
It was great working with an editor like Cambridge University Press !
Kind regards,
Marc.
Just as clarification, CUP gave me complementary copies of these two books in return for my views on the market for amateur astronomy books in general and on spectroscopy in particular which they asked me about this some time ago.
I have long been a fan of Richard Walker’s Atlas in its free on line format for many years and I was pleased to find that CUP did a good job transferring it to print.
I do have some reservations about the accompanying “Spectroscopy for Amateur Astronomers” though which is based on two other on line documents previously published by Richard. It is a useful reference book with a good list of references for further reading but the practical parts are somewhat limited to what Richard has worked on in preparation of his atlas and may have benefited from wider input from other experienced amateurs . For example the use of flats and difficulties of flux calibration he mentions are areas which, while tricky subjects, have largely been successfully tackled by other amateurs. I would have preferred these areas and other areas to have been addressed head on in more detail rather than just put in the “too difficult for amateurs” category.This is my personal view of course which I did convey to CUP when they originally asked for my comments on an early draft.
Robin
Hi Robin,
Are you able to share if much has been added to the second book (Spectroscopy for Amateur Astronomers) compared to the on-line version, or is it essentially just a very nicely bound copy of the original material?
Paul
Hi Paul,
It is a bit tricky to tell as the final version is a combination of the two on line documents. “Analysis and interpretation of Astronomical spectra” and “Practical Aspects of Astronomical Spectroscopy” Also the on line copies I have are probably not the last versions that Richard published (mine are v8.6 and v2.0 respectively). Perhaps Marc has a better idea of what has been added/changed significantly. Alternatively a comparison of the list of contents might show up any obvious differences.
Cheers
Robin
I am sure I will get these sooner or later to add to the collection having used the down load atlas a lot and the guide less so.
I think I have most, if not all, the currently available “spectroscopy” books and while none covered everything my current preferred tome is Spectroscopic Instrumentation by Thomas Eversburg and Klaus Vollmann but that reflect my particular interests.
Regards Andrew
Hi Robin, Paul and Andrew.
Many thanks for your interest in our books, also on behalf of Richard.
Concerning the content of book2 a more detailed overview of the different chapters is available following this link:
Therein you can see the detailed table of contents to compare with former online documents.
For all people who have already downloaded the former online documents “Analysis and Interpretation of Astronomical Spectra” and “Practical Aspects of Astronomical Spectroscopy” those documents were in fact reworked and adapted to the new table of contents of book2. Therein I introduced a more detailed background on the chemistry and physics of astronomical interest for spectroscopy. Furthermore book 2 operates also as a companion for the Spectral Atlas containing additional astrophysical information running parallel to the plates in the Atlas. Therefore when I was reviewing the Atlas in detail I proposed another sequence of the chapters in contrast to the former online version.
This way the Twin book project is also a nice tool for lecturers within spectroscopy courses. The purpose of our works is to make a contribution to the knowledge of the growing group of amateur astronomers stepping into spectroscopy, even less “scientifically skilled” people, who are also interested in this relatively new field offered by their astronomy club or observatory.
For the more advanced amateur astronomer the books are a vademecum in the step up process in working together with professional environment.
To give an idea how the two books are synchronised you can find a presentation I gave last year following this link:
http://www.armandpien.be/slides/slide/twin-book-project-door-marc-trypsteen-8
and some excerpts presented at the optics study day at the UGent University on March 17th 2017 following this link:
https://www.docdroid.net/8uKTb9N/optdag2017tryponline.pdf
Kind regards,
Marc.
Well done, good work and congratulations to Marc and Richard.
I know just how much time and effort goes into a book or two.
I will be ordering copies in due course.
Regards,
Jack
Essex UK
Author A Spectroscopic Atlas of Bright Stars
Co-author Practical Amateur Spectroscopy
Many thanks, Jack ! Much appreciated!
Indeed, you are absolutely right about the input of time and all efforts needed, but it was worth it.
Now we have again more free time to do observations and simultaneously record spectra. 😉
Kind regards,
Marc.
My copies arrived a couple of days ago. The spectra in the Atlas are beautifully reproduced. Thank you both!
Hugh
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